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Sandia Labs Takes First Steps Toward Fusion
robosmall writes "Sandia Labs has successfully demostrated the emission of neutrons (a side effect of thermonuclear fusion) from a BB-sized capsule of deuterium using using their venerable Z-Machine (eye-candy!). With this achievement they enter the race to create sustained fusion reactions."
Fusion seems to be the ultimate goal for energy. Offering a
clean and abundant power supply that could potentially alter our
entire power production system. One of the problems with the
transition to a hydrogen based economy has been that energy is
required to extract the hydrogen from known reserves (petroleum,
water, etc). The most common solution offered seems to be solar
powered systems, however fusion could offer a great alternative
which in the long run may prove more viable and more extensively
useable than solar, hydro-electric, or wind power individually,
maybe even collectively.
It's particularly encouraging to see the scientists questioned
their results and tested for extraneous sources before
publishing preliminary findings.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
Harnessing energy release is what all generators are about. It's not the release of energy that is difficult, but the efficient release and harness. :)
Coal/oil/gas generators all generally heat water, turning it into steam, spinning a turbine to produce mechanical energy which is converted to electricity through induction.
Fission also releases massive amounts of heat energy which is absorbed by water and turns a turbine.
The majority of energy in these fusion reactions (Inertial confinement fusion (laser driven), magnetic confinement fusion (in a tokamak), electrically pulsed like in this article) leaves the system in the kinetic energy of the resulting particles. For example, Deuterium and Tritium are often fused yielding normal Helium and a neutron. Both are moving very fast after the fusion. This velocity is where most of the energy of fusion is. You can capture this again by letting the fast particles transfer their energy to a big resorvoir which would heat up from this energy transfer and again heat water to steam to turn a turbine.
With matter-antimatter collisions, the gamma rays would have to be absorbed by some matter, which energizes the matter, either thermally or electrically (that's how solar cells work - by liberating electrons by light interaction) or some other means I can't think of.
But you have to find the antimatter first
-Leo